When we quit we need to solve the problem of why we smoked to begin with. Then after that we need to solve the problem of how to stay smoke-free.
Part of our homework during this quitting process is gaining an education about this addiction, then gaining more education about steps to overcome it, and after that more study on how to maintain that abstinence.
A brief analogy/example of what happened to me yesterday may offer advice to others.
I have a very old AT&T Go Phone. It's smart, so it's not THAT old, but in the realm of modern technology it's rather a relic. Maybe 8 years old now? Just past the flip phone stage before the larger screen I-phones. Uses Window's 8.1, for those who are tech savvy.
So I did something rather catastrophic late night-before-last attempting to erase a missed message from a phone number I didn't recognize. I erased that, along with the main top portion tile of the phone. Which meant there was no ability to dial out. I still had access to the numbers of those in my address book, and other apps, but no way to make a new call to anyone else. If I couldn't find a dial pad tile, there would be no point in keeping this phone, because we use it for making all sorts of long distance calls that would otherwise cost us more money on our land line. Which would mean we'd have to buy a new cell phone. This cell phone costs us $28 a month for the service. Good luck on finding something similar.
Step 1, I tried every which way I could think of to locate that tile and reinstate it. Nope. Then I spend a little time doing a google search see if there were any answers on line. None I could find. Then I called AT&T. They tried to solve the problem, couldn't, passed me on to Nokia (which is the brand of the phone.) Nokia couldn't help me and passed me on to Microsoft, because it's a Windows program that runs the phone. Needless to say, I couldn't even connect with anybody LIVE at Microsoft. We're talking over an hour of time spent on this. (I will say the AT&T guy really tried to help. The Nokia person, - briefly. Kudos to the AT&T guy!)
Step 2. Because I don't give up, I went on line AGAIN and eventually found the answer. A very simple one, actually. As I have learned and have said to myself o'er and o'er - "God gave you a brain, you just have to USE IT!" When I use that brain, I usually can solve my problem. Thank you God! Or at least find the answer to the problem. Even if I don't have the technical acumen to fix it myself, I can then pay someone with the necessary skills to do it for me.
It's like when we had a water leak SOMEWHERE underground on our property. They wanted $1,200 to dig up the main water line in order to find the source of it in the pipe. The guy said it was probably in a T-joint where the pipe came down from the top of our driveway and connected to another pipe that leads to the barn. I said to myself I'd be darned if I was gonna pay somebody $1,200 to find that leak and dig up the entire water line with a trencher from the top of the driveway (500 feet away) to our house. So I used my brain and found it myself! How? He gave me a clue - that was all I needed. Imagination and determination carried me forward. I got on my hands and knees with a paper towel and felt the earth. I felt it with knees and with my hands. I was willing to walk over the entire property on my hands and knees in order to find it. I crawled along and then visually noticed the ground looked more damp in one area. Then I pressed my paper towel, foot by foot, into the ground. And it suddenly got kind of wet. And then very wet. And then I got a big iron pole out and stuck it into that spot, (just as he had probed at the top of the driveway with HIS iron pole) deep as I could and - water suddenly gushed out of the hole. Then I got the shovel and dug and dug until I excavated enough dirt and guess what? I uncovered that T-joint!
I couldn't FIX it. But I found it. And it only cost a couple of hundred dollars to replace instead of over a thousand. The guy was kind of amazed that I found it. And I was mighty proud!
My point - don't give up pursuing your goal. Whatever it might be. If you don't succeed the first time, keep at it. Study the problem until you find your answer. God gave us brains. Education is our friend. We can't give you a quit, but we can help you find the answers. You have to do the initial hard work.
Perseverance pays off. Stick with it.
